Faith and Values: Where is God?

December 28, 2012|By Sharon Solt Joseph, Special to The Morning Call

Did you get to church on Christmas Eve? If not, you might want to go Sunday, the sixth day in the season of Christmas (yes, as in geese a-laying ...). If you're lucky the preacher will still be talking about incarnation — God becoming one of us or the service might celebrate Emmanuel — that God is with us.

If you get to hear either one of those messages and it rings true for you, then the next time we face a crisis such as the one at Sandy Hook, you'll have the best answer to give to those who ask "Where is God in this?" or to those who suggest that the crisis came "because we took God out of the schools."

Of course the answer is that God is with us: everywhere, everyone, always.

And think about this: how can anyone say that we mere humans can take our powerful God out of any place. Every Christmas we preach about a God who dwells with us, not imposing his presence, but simply because God loves us best and most by being with us in our human condition.

So instead of buying into these preachers that the media like to pick up because they make all kinds of outrageous statements — those preachers who pronounce God's judgment (really!?) — I hope you are thinking for yourself.

The New York congregation I served before I came to Bethlehem was devastated by Hurricane Sandy. Many of my parishioners there still don't have power and some will never get back into their homes. As I followed their story on Facebook, I grieved with them and I wanted to be with them. I think that's what God wants to do for us.

The same has impressed me about the stories coming out of Sandy Hook School: strangers went there to offer love and support in the face of daunting grief.

I respect what religion professor and commentator Stephen Prothero said of Sandy Hook's grief, "Today is a day to shake your fist at heaven and demand answers, and then to shake it harder when no answers are forthcoming. To do anything else is in my view to diminish the idea of God, and to cheapen faith in the process."

So when I have read Dobson or Huckabee or others who claim to know why these things happen, I can only shake my head with sadness, because they miss the point of all this.

The Rev. Matthew Crebbin, pastor of the Newtown United Church of Christ, hit the nail on the head. He asked his parishioners to embrace each other and the community to alleviate pain. "The love which causes our hearts to break is the love that helps us heal," he said.

I've come up with three principles which usually help me find comfort in any crisis:

1. Put things in perspective so you won't get reactionary. The New York Times reported on Dec. 17, just a few days after the Sandy Hook shootings, that 10 girls, 6 to 11 years old, were killed in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb while they collected firewood.

Why tell you about that? This terribly sad story reminds us that senseless death happens over and over — in the violence of war, of hunger of poverty. In each case, life goes on —sadder, but it goes on.

2. Don't expect to find an answer. I ask "why" about everything. But I usually say it with appreciation and respect for mystery. I don't need answers if I know I am loved.

3. Find people to love and let them love you. Crises can't get the best of us if we love each other, if we realize we are not alone.

So where's God? You'll find God in the kindness of strangers, the hugs of a neighbor, the casserole of a colleague, in the silent presence of a good friend. God is in schools and prisons and offices and everywhere. Don't you find that to be so?

The Rev. Sharon Solt Joseph is pastor of the Church of the Manger United Church of Christ in Bethlehem.